Drawing with light 2

Because there is a neon light workshop now available for drawing students, I thought it worthwhile to just remind everyone that there is a long and continuing tradition of drawing with light. The earliest records we have of this is in the building of megalithic tombs and aligning them to the rising and setting of the sun.

The image above is of light entering a tomb in Newgrange in Ireland. Once a year, at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage into the burial chamber for about 17 minutes and illuminates the floor. Many cultures and periods of art history have used light as a way to make images and define spaces, whether this is stained glass in Christian churches or the Diwali Festival of Lights, all respond to the power and spiritual associations we have when seeing light in darkness. Leeds itself has the tradition of Light Night and the 5th of November, 'Bonfire Night' is an excuse for everyone to try drawing images in the dark with fireworks.  

There are iconic images of Picasso drawing with light in his studio. I particularly like this one, because of the peculiar colour range and the way that Picasso is gradually fading away, his work becoming what replaces him.

Picasso

Some artists have spent their whole career drawing with light,  Anthony McCall in particular has explored the relationship between drawing, sculpture and installation with light drawings such as 'Between You and I'. His work not only draws in a space but it actually articulates how we experience space. His work Line Describing a Cone from 1973 is made from a beam of white light emitted from a film projector positioned at one end of a darkened room. Passing through the projector is an animated film of a thin, arcing line that, frame by frame, gradually joins up to become a complete circle. Over the course of thirty minutes this line of light traces the circumference of the circle as a projection on the far wall while the beam takes the form of a three-dimensional hollow cone. Mist from smoke machines gives the beam of light a greater density, making it appear almost tangible.

Anthony McCall: Between you and I

Carlo Bernardini uses laser installations to reveal the nature of architectural spaces.

Carlo Bernardini

Bernardini effects a sort of 'join the dots' sculptural experience, locating his laser driven 3D drawings between the main elements of any architectural structure. Lasers are now much more common and laser measuring devices have brought them into the home. You can use small mirrors to send beams around corners and create reasonably safe light environments. (Nb. I say reasonably safe because peoples eyes are very sensitive and you have to be vary careful that these beams are not going to take someone by surprise. Always check with H&S experts if you are going to try this).  

Annica Cuppetelli and Cristobal Mendoza have been collaborating since 2010. They work using textiles and light projections. Transposition a site-specific installation consists of elastic ropes that are illuminated by software driven video projections and asks questions as to the relationship between the real and the virtual, audiences having to interact with the elastic ropes in order to shape and transform the projections.

Annica Cuppetelli and Cristobal Mendoza

Massimo Uberti states, "I like to create architectures of light,  I employ neon tubes to build places for poetical inhabitants, trying to create dream-like spaces that allow for reflection." Again we have an artist that creates architecture within architecture, this time for poetic purposes and the creation of an image, rather than trying to explore the space and its properties as an end in its own right.

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Dan Flavin is the artist who introduced the neon tube into art during the early 1960s, as a Minimalist sculptural device, Bruce Nauman working at a similar time realised its potential as a conceptual tool. Since this time the neon has become more readily available and more importantly for a while cheaper to produce, until it became a go to material for a wide range of artists from Tracy Emin to Martin Creed. Most of these artists were of course using neon for its textual possibilities, the fact that it had to be seen in the dark was perhaps not as important as the fact it referenced commercial signage and was part of the aesthetic of the street at night.

Most of our images of neon are photographs, we are often consumers of second hand images via the printed or on screen image. Therefore it is no surprise that several artists who draw with light, specialise in photography, the actual event of the images making, sometimes being as important as the photograph that recorded the action.

Susan Sims-Hillbrand views her work as a performance and she refers to the end result as Spiritual Landscapes. “They are like a choreographed dance, movie or play on a single frame of film. They tell a story. Still today it fascinates me to know I am in the piece yet you never see me.”  Working using film rather than digitally, Sims-Hillbrand draws her images using torches, working around the edges of people within long exposures, so that it appears that she is capturing the ghost of someone's presence.

Susan Sims-Hillbrand 

Thomas Wilfred

The video above is from the 1930s and is by Thomas Wilfred an artist who coined the term "lumia" to describe "an eighth art" where light would stand on its own as an expressive art-form. As you can see working directly with light is nothing new, and Thomas Wilfred was aware of this, siting his work within a tradition of light as a spiritual response to the world, he often referred to Theosophy as a guiding principle, thus linking him to Mondrian and Kandinsky two other leading early Modernists who also followed Theosophy.

Working with light will always be associated with a sense of wonder. Seeing the world by moonlight as you walk home at night still feels like a special experience, we are still excited by firework displays and those glowing neons over high street shops are part and parcel of what it is to live in a 24 hour city. Artists are still called in by the church to respond to the old ideas of Christian spirituality and stained glass although an ancient craft can be renewed by more contemporary languages, Marc Chagall in particular was often brought in to design new windows. When I visited Chichester Cathedral during the summer I discovered a wonderful window designed by him.

Chagall stained glass

So whether you are using traditional craft skills or the latest laser projections you will be working within a long tradition of illuminating both the physical space and the mental condition of the various audiences that might encounter the work.

For further reflections on film see:

For an interesting article on 3D drawing by John Stell that includes a section on using the recording of light in association with body movement see:

See also:

Liz West on working with coloured filters.

Kinetica art fair

Stained glass
Drawing with light 1
Drawing with light 3

Shadow play with articulated collage

Artificial light

Tone and emotional value